Libraries

[Kupcake]

Can anybody tell me the whereabouts of a library where my son (a high school student at ISH) can borrow the books? It probably needs to be some type of university library for the information he requires. Can he borrow the books from a library like that without being a university student?

[Pursuivant]

these modern pampered noveau-helpless kids. depending on what kind of a book he wants the book is if it is available as a distance loan - its in the libraries central database you can search for - NELLI and HELKA http://www.nelliportaali.fi/V?portal=HY ... ew_lng=eng see where the book is and if its available or research only and maybe even reserve it. some information is available only from the school computer if the school has made the agreement for the database. the polytechnics have their own https://oa.doria.fi/

[Rosamunda]

ISH does have a library in the school.

Otherwise just get a library card for Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and reserve the books you want on-line from the library system and pick them up from your local branch.

My godaughter just completed her IB diploma (at Mattliden in Espoo) and as far as I know she got all the information she needed from the school library and the local public libraries. She also bought a few books on-line from amazon.

If you are in Espoo then try going in to a big library (like ISo Omena which is bang next door to Mattliden IB school) and ask them to help you out. Most of the staff speak English and they are EXTREMELY helpful and will explain the whole library system to you and even help you find the books you need.

[Kupcake]

Thanks Penelope. Yes, there is a library at ISH but it's VERY basic, and the extended essay requires much more high level research material than is offered there. My eldest son completed the IB last June too, and he also required more heavy duty books than the school offers, but one of his teachers helped him out with those.

Yesterday i went to one of the university libraries and got a library card, then spent a few hours perusing. I was really pleased with what i found and borrowed 6 books, and ordered another 6. That should set him up well. I know it sounds really bad that i'm doing this for him, but he's volunteering in a third world country right now doing building work and i figure i can help him out

[Rosamunda]

OK, good to know. My eldest starts lukio in a couple of weeks time (he's doing Finnish matric and A levels at Kulosaari) so if necessary I'll suggest he also joins a library. At the moment I only have to pay a 100€ book fee which supposedly covers all his books for the coming year, but I am pretty sure I will have to order some new. A friend of mine just forked out 500€ for books for her son who is starting lukio in Kerava and most of them were second hand.

It stinks that ISH can't get together a bigger library, IIRC it has a good stock of kiddies' books (mine were in 1st, 3rd and 4th grade when we moved here but they only stayed for one year until we got them in to Finnish schools). And it stinks even more that they don't enrol the students at the university library AUTOMAGICALLY but then again, I guess IB is all about figuring it out for yourself. Which kind of begs the question on why they "arrange" the CAS project for them which is supposed to be an initiative thing.... whatever. I know a few parents complain about the cost of the CAS project (OK it's all for a great cause but school fees are already >10K€ pa...). For various reasons I am on an IB rant at the moment, so just ignore me

It also stinks that books are so expensive in Finland and publishers like WSOY etc have a quasi-monopoly on school materials.

[Pursuivant]

don't know if the ISH students organize a "book recycling club" or are they the same as in Finnish schools the text on page 11 has changed so its a new book already...
*but* ordering in bulk from some foreign publisher(bookstore directly *might* be feasible.... I know in polytechnics a good set of the handout folders is worth something after the course...

[onkko]

OK, good to know. My eldest starts lukio in a couple of weeks time (he's doing Finnish matric and A levels at Kulosaari) so if necessary I'll suggest he also joins a library. At the moment I only have to pay a 100€ book fee which supposedly covers all his books for the coming year, but I am pretty sure I will have to order some new. A friend of mine just forked out 500€ for books for her son who is starting lukio in Kerava and most of them were second hand.

It stinks that ISH can't get together a bigger library, IIRC it has a good stock of kiddies' books (mine were in 1st, 3rd and 4th grade when we moved here but they only stayed for one year until we got them in to Finnish schools). And it stinks even more that they don't enrol the students at the university library AUTOMAGICALLY but then again, I guess IB is all about figuring it out for yourself. Which kind of begs the question on why they "arrange" the CAS project for them which is supposed to be an initiative thing.... whatever. I know a few parents complain about the cost of the CAS project (OK it's all for a great cause but school fees are already >10K€ pa...). For various reasons I am on an IB rant at the moment, so just ignore me

It also stinks that books are so expensive in Finland and publishers like WSOY etc have a quasi-monopoly on school materials.

For you living in finland with bad income.
Sosiaalitoimisto will fund demanded books as part of toimeentulotuki, been there and done that. But that means youre really poor. Got my books "free" because i couldnt afford them. i were 19y old so not under "elatusvelvollisuus" (under obligation to provide?) so maybe/probably different but being poor wont stop education. Paperwork is needed etc but still.
Probably that wasnt info your for you but i thought ill add if someone searches for this.
Im £$€¤%& xenophilic racists £$€¤%& but i still think education is important

[Rosamunda]

And, for those who need the standard Finnish lukio text books there is a store in Kamppi (not inside the mall) that buys and sells new and used lukio books. I'll try and find the exact address.

[Kupcake]

OK, good to know. My eldest starts lukio in a couple of weeks time (he's doing Finnish matric and A levels at Kulosaari) so if necessary I'll suggest he also joins a library. At the moment I only have to pay a 100€ book fee which supposedly covers all his books for the coming year, but I am pretty sure I will have to order some new. A friend of mine just forked out 500€ for books for her son who is starting lukio in Kerava and most of them were second hand.

It stinks that ISH can't get together a bigger library, IIRC it has a good stock of kiddies' books (mine were in 1st, 3rd and 4th grade when we moved here but they only stayed for one year until we got them in to Finnish schools). And it stinks even more that they don't enrol the students at the university library AUTOMAGICALLY but then again, I guess IB is all about figuring it out for yourself. Which kind of begs the question on why they "arrange" the CAS project for them which is supposed to be an initiative thing.... whatever. I know a few parents complain about the cost of the CAS project (OK it's all for a great cause but school fees are already >10K€ pa...). For various reasons I am on an IB rant at the moment, so just ignore me

It also stinks that books are so expensive in Finland and publishers like WSOY etc have a quasi-monopoly on school materials.

There's plenty that stinks at ISH. More information SHOULD be given about lots of things at that school. Basically yesterday i found out that my son can use ANY of the university libraries now that he has this helka card, and has access to loads of reference books. A separate book fee isn't paid at ISH (it's probably included in the sky high annual school fee), and the text books they get aren't really the problem. It's more a problem for any periferal study that has to happen, and there's plenty of that in the IB.

Re the CAS hours, my eldest did all of his CAS by himself (mainly because there wasn't anything arranged for them that year), and my second is is involved in an organised one. Initiative is still required for organised projects, as there are so many facets to them.

My biggest problem with ISH is that there is no value for money. You'd think that when you're paying that much in school fees that the quality of resources and staff would be top class, but unfortunately there is so much lacking in the school. We've been sorely disappointed in so many ways - we've had to take on roles ourselves that we feel should be the responsibility of the teachers, and had to limit our kids' participation in certain activities because of supervisory issues.

I remember a while ago reading a post that said that all teachers in Finland require a masters degree. Is that true for all schools in Finland?

[Rosamunda]

No, a masters degree gets you tenure and a bigger salary but there are plenty of teachers that are teaching without. The "international" schools (ie the Finnish schools that teach the Finnish core curriculum in English) are havens of ex-pats with no formal teacher training, some don't even have appropriate degrees and many many have no training whatsoever in areas such as special needs. The whole arena of English language schooling in Finland is a can of worms and the more I find out about it, the more I get upset and deeply regret not throwing my 3 boys into the local ala-aste as soon as we arrived (we have a hole in the hedge in our back yard that leads to a primary school, 50m from our house and none of my kids have ever set foot in the place). You live and learn.

The problems with ISH have been on-going. It is difficult for the school to compete in a country where there are IB schools offering the same for free (eg Ressu, SYK, Mattliden). How can they possibly justify charging 12K euro per annum for something which any reasonably intelligent Finnish child can access without charge? There isn't even a dedicated building for the IB students any more and for various reasons I guess they are unable to specialise (eg in Science subjects or Arts and Design etc) - they just don't have the facilities. A few years ago the staff went on strike because they were underpaid. Then there were some major incidents with the child of a senior diplomat which resulted (long story, you've probably heard it all already) with the newspapers trashing the school, an inspection by the Min Edu and eventually (after a petition from parents directly to the President of the envoy's country) the repatriation of the diplomat in question (and his son). I think enrolmetns took a dive at that point and the High School moved back into the main building. When Ressu got its IB accreditation and Finland started getting top marks from the PISA surveys, more and more ex-pats elected to put their kids through local schools.

We took our kids out because we could not afford the fees and because we really wanted them to learn Finnish (which was not going to happen in ISH as there was no intensive course for Finnish foreign language). My eldest son had a wonderful teacher (who has since left) but his elder brother spent a whole year with a teacher who was TOTALLY incompetent (I would go in to help with the EFL students and witnessed the damage for myself). The school knew it and did nothing about it (after 2 years they did not renew his contract). Anyway... that was 2002 or thereabouts so I hope it has improved a bit since then. Schools do change quickly if they have the right people in the right places.

Now the EU is opening the European school which will eventually - I believe - be accessible to the general public (this year only employees of the EU bio-chem commission can school their kids there).

[Kupcake]

Wow, i had no idea about the issue with the diplomat and ISH. We didn't feel as though we had much of a choice with schools when we first came here as our kids were much older when we made the move and we fell for the sales pitch at the interview. Once we realised the true condition of things our kids were entrenched with their work and their friends, so we figured we should stick it out and try to protect them as much as possible, and make up for the shortfalls where we can. I've been a senior administrator in a school before and can see where the problems lie, but the problems at ISH won't be rectified until they spend more money on quality teachers and properly trained administrators, who will then - along with being able to perform their roles in a professional manner - be able to identify and rectify resource shortfalls as a team. The school also lacks a sense of community - which i find surprising as you'd think an international school would be a perfect environment for building a sense of community - and this contributes a great deal to the disappointing experience that a lot of families are experiencing there.

But for us, only one more year to go until our middle graduates, and then our third will complete his last two years in an Australian high school, in Australia. As in all schools, i know there will be issues to deal with, but hopefully they won't be as dissapointing as the issues we've had to cope with at ISH.

I've also heard about the EU school. There are not very many of them in the world, so it will be interesting to see how the students' results compare to the Finnish school students results.

[Pursuivant]

And, for those who need the standard Finnish lukio text books there is a store in Kamppi (not inside the mall) that buys and sells new and used lukio books. I'll try and find the exact address.

they've been advertising on the radio now constantly... just missing the www address...
OK here - but the used ones are by internet only:
http://www.lukiolaistenkirjakauppa.fi/k ... .asp?akt=4

[Rosamunda]

The school also lacks a sense of community - which i find surprising as you'd think an international school would be a perfect environment for building a sense of community - and this contributes a great deal to the disappointing experience that a lot of families are experiencing there.

I was actually in a meeting in the main hall in ISH when the WTC came down. At that time I would guess 80% of students in the school were either Finnish or American. There was a huge disagreement on how security issues should be managed: the USA mums and dads wanted armed guards on the doors and the Finns wanted business as usual. The school governors were mostly Finns but there were some fairly senior USA diplomats and defence people/civil servants attached to the school also.... hence the clash.

You're right, there was no real sense of community and a rather awkward avoidance of all things Finnish for some reason I used to dread going in there in the afternoon to fetch my kids, always felt uncomfortable. My kids did not particularly like the place, were even told one day in recess, "you can't play hockey with us because you are not Finnish"
Our previous school was AISB in Budapest which was a hard act to follow, brilliant school which my kids adored.

[Pursuivant]

How can they possibly justify charging 12K euro per annum for something which any reasonably intelligent Finnish child can access without charge?

you know, it was the only school thats originally designed for "expat" kids like the diplomats' little angels... and then it was supposedly the elite school for "better people" for the IB... good prey on the "fresh off ryanair" foreigner parents who obviously "do not know things everybody knows"... though if you have a teenager just in middle of any matriculation/levels/lycee its always a critical challenge to try and figure out what will happen if they are put in with the grass-skirt natives learning all kinds of wickedness... and then miss getting into the old alma mater...

[Pursuivant]

until they spend more money.

ah see thats the thing they aren't adhering to the "system" so the county/state funding is... well, isn't there. they're somewhat anal regarding private schools in finland. and the old yarn "why would you pay for free education" comes up with a blank stare...

I've also heard about the EU school. There are not very many of them in the world, so it will be interesting to see how the students' results compare to the Finnish school students results.

correct me if I understood the idea wrong - but is it not designed such that the kids can adhere to countryX curriculum or something to that extent?